The cuts come due, in part, to a stalemate between the two political parties during an election year. Both sides seemingly agree that cuts need to be made somewhere, with the annual budget deficit currently at $1.33T USD.

Democrats tend to focus their efforts on cutting defense department spending, while avoiding cuts to education and only committing to minor reform on entitlements (welfare, Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, etc.). Republicans, meanwhile, are calling for an increase in federal defense spending coupled with sweeping cuts to education and entitlements.

Both sides argue that in the short-term deficit spending is acceptable, but that in the future the deficit should be eliminated.

If politicians can't agree on the U.S. budget for 2013, an automatic budget with large mandatory cuts drops into place. [Image Source: St. Anthony's San Francisco]

It's unclear whether either side's plan would manage to "balance" the budget. But it is clear both sides refuse to meet at a negotiating table.

As a result, there will be only weeks to cut a deal before a series of across-the-board automatic cuts of $1.2T USD kick in. Congress installed those cuts when it raised the debt ceiling as a failsafe in case a compromise on the 2013 budget could not be reached (in retrospect a pretty likely scenario, given the election year tensions).

When President John F. Kennedy proposed to send a human to the Moon in 1961, the budget was $13.878B USD -- around $101B USD in 2010 purchasing power [source]. Today the budget is expected to dip to less than a fifth of that, at $17.77B USD (2012 dollars).

Current U.S. President Barack Obama has proposed boosting the overall science budget. Under his plan most agencies would see modest boosts, while NASA would see a smaller cut of $164M USD given the $1.3B USD in cuts the automatic budget cuts would institute.

The President's plan calls for reducing the deficit to $901B USD -- roughly a 1/3rd reduction not adjusting for Producer Price Index (PPI). It calls for further reduction to $575B USD by 2018 -- roughly a 57 percent cut from 2012's deficit (not adjusting for PPI).